Always a Queen of Narnia
by Amashelle
Summary: While her family may be dead, Susan's story continues. Will it lead her back to Narnia? I know, it's been done, but the story wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to write it anyway. Please review and let me know if it is at all different from all the others
1. Left Behind

The word came from her Uncle Harold. She almost wasn't there for the call, but she was running late, and when the telephone operator came down to find her, Susan was just on her way out the door. Upstairs, under the careful ears of the operators (mostly women), Susan Pevensie listened to her uncle. He had to yell over his wife's sobs, and the static that came naturally with talking on the telephone, but the message came through clear enough.

Her parents. Peter, Edmund, Lucy. Her cousin Eustace. The professor who had cared for her during the London evacuation. An explosion. Some sort of crash.

Her Uncle fell silent. She could hear the grief in the static of the line. She stared blankly at the operator who's phone she'd borrowed.

'Susan?' Uncle Harold's voice only just registered in her thoughts.

'Thank you, Uncle. I will return as soon as I can.' Her voice was calm. Too calm. The way it always got when faced with impossible news. She handed the phone back to the operator, who placed it back in its cradle.

'Susan, what is it?' She asked. Was her name Lydia? Yes. That was it.

'I need to go home,' she said, as though she had a home to go to now. As though there was anything left for her back there.

Susan was used to leaving things behind. She'd left England for the frontier of America. She'd left home for the knowledge of university. She'd left London for the safety of the countryside. She'd even left Narnia behind her.

Narnia.

Susan frowned. It was the puzzled frown that creased her forehead. Mother had always told her it would give her wrinkles one day, and certainly she tried very hard to avoid that, but her mother wasn't there anymore. Nobody was there anymore.

In just a few brief moments, Susan had lost everything she had left.

Leaving Lydia behind her, Susan walked without seeing, out of the busy telephone operator office, down the steps, out into the early afternoon sunlight. It felt strange on her face. Too warm. Too bright. Her heart wanted to encase itself in ice to numb the terrible pain that, for the moment, lingered as a thought on the outskirts of her mind. As long as she didn't think, she could keep it at bay.

She looked up to get her bearings. Directly in front of her, as though she'd been walking all along towards this intersection, was a small church.

'_You must come to know me in your world, now.'_ The words were a hollow echo in her mind. A bitter reminder of the things she'd left behind… of the things _he_ had _made_ her leave behind.

Lucy was lucky. She could live on faith. She could go on believing even when everything said it was impossible. Susan was more practical than that. Too practical, it turned out.

Then again. Susan was still alive.

_Why would they all be there? What would bring all seven of them to the same place?_

Susan stood there, staring at the little wrought iron fence of the little whitewashed church. There was a sort of lion motif to the iron work, it seemed. Or perhaps that was Susan, seeing things that weren't there. Her eyes fixed on the shape, but the more she tried to see it, the harder it got, and she did not want to go any closer to the church. Maybe she could find Aslan in there, but it was never him that she had wanted to see again.

The streets were starting to fill with people getting out of work. Susan was aware of them only because they sometimes jostled her, or walked across her line of sight. Her eyes remained fixed on the peculiar pattern of the iron fence, and slowly, despite her best interests, she started to walk towards it.

There was nothing left now. He'd taken it all.

She was at the gate. The iron work really did look like lions now, but her vision had started to blur, so she still couldn't trust her eyes.

'Why Aslan?' She whispered, running her finger over the smelted lion. 'Why all of them?'

'Excuse me, can I get past?' Susan jumped back. Free of their jostling, she'd forgotten there were others in the street with her. She stepped back and let an older woman open the gate. Just as she was stepping though, she looked back at Susan. 'Are you alright, dear? You look lost.'

Susan stared at her for a long moment, and the woman stared back, patiently. 'I need to get to London,' she said at length. At the very least, she had to say goodbye. Maybe she was being selfish, but she thought that Aslan owed her at least that much.

'You'd best try the harbour, dear. It's not far — straight down that road,' she pointed to the left. 'I could take you, if you like?'

Susan shook her head. 'No, thank you. I can manage.'


	2. Salt Waters

The long trip east was painful for its repetition. Susan spent most of it in her room, a private suite, at least, watching the water lap against the side of the ship.

Narnian ships were much more comfortable. They cut through the waves like swords, gliding swiftly in the cool winds. Susan had loved being out at sea, journeying out to the Lone Islands, or just sailing along the coast of Narnia. She tried not to think about that, though. For the last few years, she'd done a fair job of keeping all those memories bottled up inside of her, though none of the others could understand why.

Narnia had ruined everything. Since she'd first come back through the wardrobe, Susan had felt out of place. The secret of her life in Narnia weighed her down and set her apart. She wanted to tell people what she had learned, what she had seen. Sometimes, she'd felt as though she would burst with the wonder of it all. But she had to pretend to be normal. To be just like every other girl she knew. She had to feign interest in mundane things like telephones and other such inventions. 'It's like magic!' People said. They were wrong. Susan had known magic. She had lived in it, and because of it, and for it. She had felt it transform her into something she could never be again, but would always be anyway.

Eventually, it was easier to live in denial than to survive in that terrible state of longing, even if it did drive a wedge between her and her siblings.

Especially Peter. She would never forget that last fight. The very last time they had ever spoken. She could still hear his voice in her head, far clearer than Aslan's pathetic echo was.

'_What do you mean "games"?' His voice was still calm, then. He looked at her as though he expected her to deliver some sort of punch line._

_She forced a lighthearted laugh. 'Yes games, silly. We both know it's all quite impossible.'_

_Lucy had run away, then, crying as she had when Edmund had lied about his first trip to Narnia. Crying as though she'd been betrayed. With a nasty glare at Susan, Edmund went after her; an ironic switch of their roles._

_Peter's smile faded. 'Why'd you go and do that?'_

_Susan rolled her eyes. 'Come on, Peter. She has to grow up sometime: we can't keep __humouring__ her for the rest of her life.'_

_He stepped towards her. 'How can you say you don't believe? After everything we've seen?'_

'_It's impossible,' she repeated, and laughed again, that oddly high-pitched laugh she had when she was trying too hard to act natural. 'Honestly: a magical land inside a wardrobe?'_

_Peter looked at her then as though he understood. 'We all miss it, Susan,' he said, 'but it's still here, as long as we believe. "Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia."'_

'_Quite right: unfortunately, I have slightly higher aspirations than being queen of a mythical land. If you want to waste your life pretending, that's your decision.'_

_She could see the anger in his eyes now. It was the look that would remain with her. That, and Lucy's pained, tearful eyes._

_He grabbed her wrist. 'You don't mean that.' He whispered. 'Look me in the eye and tell me you don't mean that!' He was shouting now. She flinched away from him, but after a moment she composed herself and looked up at him, meeting his eyes._

'_There's no point in being angry with me. Just because I've grown up and you haven't.'_

_She'd never seen him so furious, but he had grown up well — better than Susan, perhaps — and he did not lash out. He released her arm, almost throwing it away from him, and walked away from her without another word._

Leaning against the window of her cabin, Susan started to cry.

Above her, a knot in the wood of the wall shifted imperceptibly. If one looked very closely, it was almost shaped like a lion's head, surrounded by a mane of wooden veins.


	3. Warmth in a Cold Place

I just want to say a quick thank you to those who've added this story to their favorites. I know it's not the most original setting/plot, but I'd like to think my version is at least a little bit unique; please let me know if I'm wrong on that.

So far I've been pretty good about updating, so hopefully that'll continue as a trend.

Now, without further ado...

* * *

Aunt Alberta was there to meet her when she disembarked. Even now, months after the accident, Susan could tell her aunt was grieving. Neither of them said much to each other, but they hugged, and Susan felt as though she could drown in it. It was so good to feel connected to another person again.

They went immediately to the cemetery, and Aunt Alberta walked purposefully to the grave of her only son. 'The headstones were only just finished,' she muttered, her voice cracking as she started to cry yet again.

Susan watched her for a moment. Stared at her as though she were afraid to look away. She knew exactly what was beside her. Knew that if she turned around, she would see her family's graves, and it would all come crashing down on her again. The careful mask of solemnity she had constructed for herself would fall away, and she would break down like her Aunt.

Alberta fell to her knees and threw her arms around the grave marker. Now it was painful to watch her, and Susan looked away at last, closing her eyes, ashamed, as though she'd intruded on something private.

_Susan!_

Her eyes snapped open. She was staring right at Lucy's headstone.

Her little sister.

The tears fell, as she'd known they would, and she let her gaze glance over the other markers. In the row behind Lucy's, there was a big one for their parents, their names carved next to each other just as Susan had imagined them. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy were all in a row, their gravestones identical. They seemed so plain. Especially Lucy's. Someone so full of life and hope couldn't possibly be remembered by something so dark and gloomy.

Carefully, not at all sure she wanted to, Susan brushed a finger over the smooth stone of Lucy's marker, and jerked it back. The stone had felt so much warmer than she'd expected. She glanced at the sky, but the sun was hiding. Finally. The wind blew, cool against her skin, and slowly, she laid her palm flat against the stone.

Definitely warmer than it should be. Like Lucy's smile, it made Susan feel hopeful despite it all. Despite the fact that Lucy had died months ago.

'_Susan, do you not love us anymore?'_

'_Don't be silly, Lu, of course I do.'_

'_Then why are you going so far away?'_

_Susan looked at her sister without seeing her. Lucy frowned at her, ever the most patient person. 'It's better this way.'_

'_Is it because of Peter?'_

'_I've been offered a wonderful opportunity, Lucy. I'll still write, though.'_

_Lucy looked like she doubted this. 'Promise?'_

_Susan smiled and pulled her sister to her in a warm hug. 'Of course. Every week. I promise.'_

At least she had done that much. She'd even written to Peter, but he'd never written back. Not once. Susan wondered if he'd even tried to explain their falling out to mother and father.

_Why would they all be there? What would bring all seven of them to the same place?_

It was a silly question. One that had gone through her head at least once a day since Uncle Harold's call, and though the answer to it hovered just outside her thoughts, she knew what it was. There was only one thing that would bring all three of her siblings, her cousin Eustace, the Professor, and the two other women Susan had only met once or twice together in the same place. It was the thing that had brought them all together in the first place.

Narnia.

It all circled back to Narnia. Everything had begun there, and now, it seemed, it had ended.

'I'll leave you alone for a few moments.'

Susan nodded, though she barely heard her Aunt's words. She was aware, however, of the silence once the sound of Alberta's sobs and sniffles had died away.

The wind rustled the trees, blew stray leaves over the grave plots. Susan closed her eyes and imagined she was elsewhere. In a place where the trees grew tall and wild, and danced through their forests. A place where the rivers were brilliant blue, and the skies were never smothered by smog. Where the ocean was wild and full of life. Where life was free and the only expectation was that people were good to each other.

How could it be that life as Queen of Narnia was easier than life as simple Susan Pevensie?

'I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything, Lu,' Susan whispered, her eyes still closed. 'Maybe next time I'll bring flowers. Little white ones, like you used to wear in your hair.'


	4. Anger and Regret

It may seem like this isn't really going anywhere, but I assure you it is. I do have a plot, but I wanted to make sure the relationships between Susan and her siblings were properly described.

For those of you who requested more Edmund, here he is.

* * *

Susan didn't say anything as they drove away from the cemetary. There wasn't anything to say. She'd thought that seeing the graves of her siblings would help her put a rest to the nagging resentment at the back of her mind, but it had only made it worse.

Gentle Susan had never been an angry person. So why, suddenly, did she want to kick and scream?

'We're staying with the Poles,' Alberta said suddenly. 'Their daughter was also...' her voice broke, but Susan recognized the name. Pole. Jill Pole. Another of Aslan's toys.

Susan leaned her head against the window and watched the rain start to fall. England could always be relied on for a good rain. All too soon, Alberta pulled the car up to the curb and stopped the engine.

After a brief greeting, Susan was settled into what must have been Jill's old room. Susan could see the Narnian influence in the decor. 'Dinner will be ready shortly,' Mrs. Pole said. 'I expect you're hungry after your trip.'

Like Alberta, Mrs. Pole looked like she'd spent most of her time crying, but at least her voice didn't waver with every word.

'Thank you,' Susan said. She wasn't really hungry at all; hadn't been since the news reached her. 'If it's alright, I'd like to go for a walk first.'

Mrs. Pole smiled. There was no need to explain to her why a walk in the rain was more appealing than sitting around a house full of near strangers. 'If you get lost...' she grabbed a pen and paper from off of Jill's old desk and quickly wrote on it, 'here is our address. Take your time: I'll make sure to keep a plate warm for you if you're late getting back.'

Susan smiled gratefully and tucked the paper into her coat pocket.

The Pole's lived in a residential area; the streets were lined with quiet townhomes. Susan walked past them, feeling like a ghost. She might have been alive, but there was nothing left to keep her tied down. Nothing left to connect her to the world.

At least, not this world.

'Get over yourself,' she muttered, hating how self-pitying she'd become, even more than she hated the anger that churned about in her stomach. What she needed was a good slap in the face. Something that would knock her out of the ditch she was plowing into. Someone who could point out how selfish and terrible she was being.

_Her bags were all packed, but there was sure to be something missing. Susan glanced around the room and almost jumped when she saw Edmund leaning against her doorframe._

_'Don't scare me like that!' She chided._

_Edmund smiled and pushed himself upright. 'So, America, huh? You're really going.'_

_She looked at him. 'If you're planning to talk me out of it, you're a little late.'_

_'I wouldn't dream of it. I think you'll learn a lot, and have fun doing it: though _that_, I''ll never understand.'_

_Susan laughed. Of all of them, Ed had been the most changed by Narnia, Susan was sure. But then, he'd also had the farthest to come in the begining._

_Edmund took a seat on her bed, and his expression changed. There was clearly something he wanted to say, and Susan wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear it: Edmund was too good at hitting the head of things._

_'You should talk to Peter before you leave.'_

_'I will,' she said instantly. 'Though he probably won't hear a word of it.'_

_'He's afraid you really have turned your back on Narnia.'_

_Susan made a show of looking over her luggage. 'What does it matter to him what I do and don't believe?'_

_'Susan.'_

_Reluctantly, she looked at him. He was far too wise for his years. 'It's just a silly game, Ed, isn't that what you called it?' Back when it was only you and Lucy who'd been there, she added silently._

_His expression never changed. 'You and I both know that you don't really believe that: being sent back was hard for all of us, Susan, but Aslan is still with us-'_

_'It's not about missing Aslan, Ed.' She flopped down on her bed. There was no point lying to Edmund. She should have known that from the beginging. He would never be able to explain it to anyone else, anyway. 'It's everything else. It's that we never asked to go there in the first place, and as soon as "Mighty Aslan" gets bored of having us around, he whisks us back without so much as a goodbye, and we have to re-ajust, and just when we're settled, starting to remember what it's like to be normal kids again, Aslan shakes his mane and we're back again, and it's so much brighter and happier and _better_ there, and we _belong_ there, but we're forced to live here, in this world, where everything is... hopeless.'_

_She was pacing, and Edmund was watching her, a pained look in his eye. Susan recognized that look. It was the one she saw in the mirror every morning she woke up and remembered she was still in England._

_'I know,' he said. 'But if we stick together, the eight of us, then surely that's better than trying to forget all about it?'_

_She didn't answer him, and after a while, he stood and walked away. At the door, he turned around and smiled. 'Take care, Susan.'_

It was getting dark. The rain was falling faster now, like pins. Each drop hit the ground and shattered, and where they touched skin, they stung. It never rained like this in Narnia. There, the drops were big and fat, and Susan had used to go dancing in them.

Edmund was right afterall. She'd suspected he was. If she'd stuck with them, then maybe she would be wherever they were now.

But while she accepted that fact, and the choices she had made, it also made her still angrier. Because Aslan had done it again, she was sure. He had meddled in their lives, and this time the disruption was so much more devastating than it had ever been before.


	5. On the Road to Understanding

Sorry if I've taken a while. Holiday sloth caught up to me, but here you go, and thank you to all those who have reviewed, or added this to their favorite's list. I hope that means you're all enjoying it.

Oh, and I wonder if anyone will figure out where the name 'Camilla' came from ;).

* * *

It was hard to sleep in this room. Susan tossed and turned, but she couldn't keep her eyes closed, and the moonlight filtering in through the window illuminated the walls and ornaments.

The girl who had slept here had fallen under Narnia's spell. There were hand drawn pictures of unicorns and giants and wonders that could only be found in Narnia, and everywhere she looked, Susan felt like he was watching her. From the eyes of every hand drawn lion, he looked at her in sadness and disappointment, and when at last she did fall asleep, Susan dreamed for the first time since she'd got the call from her uncle.

She was in a forest, with Peter and Edmund and Lucy. They were supposed to be hunting a white stag, but the wood was too young to be a Narnian forest, and the stag was really a hare, still white from the winter.

'Susan, come on!' Lucy cried, laughing as she ran after the hare, and then she disappeared behind a tree, Edmund and Peter right on her heals. In the dream, Susan knew that they had gone back to Narnia, and she tried to follow them, but there was something that wouldn't let her; an invisible force that held her back.

'Lucy!' She yelled. 'Peter! Edmund!'

'They have gone.'

Susan spun around, but there was nobody there. Only her.

'Lucy,' she called again, and her own cry woke her.

Her aunt was in the doorway. 'Are you all right, dear?'

Susan closed her eyes; she was crying again. 'I'm sorry if I woke you.'

Alberta came and sat on her bed. 'I wasn't sleeping. There hasn't been much of that these last few months.'

'I just wish I could have said…' she wanted to say 'sorry' but didn't want to explain the whole sorry mess to her aunt, who wouldn't have believed her anyway.

'I know. I'd have liked to have said goodbye, too.' She paused and tried for a weary smile. 'Come, Mrs. Pole is making tea.'

Sure enough, as they came down the stairs, Susan could hear the water start to boil, and when they entered the kitchen, Mrs. Pole was setting a large pot of tea on the table.

'Milk and sugar?'

Susan managed a very small, shaky smile and nodded. 'Yes, thank you Mrs. Pole.'

'Camilla, dear, please. After all this, we're practically family: might have been, if my Jill and your Eustace…' she trailed off, but she didn't burst into tears. She smiled fondly, the milk pitcher poised, ready to pour, over Susan's cup. 'But let's not dwell on what might have been.'

'You are right, though,' Alberta said. 'Eustace always insisted that they were only friends, but we all know how those things can be sometimes.' She, too, smiled fondly.

'It's a bit odd that they became friends,' Camilla went on. 'I remember Jill had some… not quite so nice things to say about your boy, and that school in general, after that first term, and then, quite suddenly, her entire demeanour changed. I never did learn why.'

Alberta looked up with interest. 'Indeed? Eustace used to be quite an unpopular boy at school; Harold and I were getting worried about that, but then he spent a summer with Lucy and Edmund,' she shot a smile at Susan, 'and the three went from being worst enemies to best friends literally overnight, and he was much happier afterwards.'

'Jill, too. Amazing what a good friendship will do, however unlikely.'

Susan remained quiet; she could have explained their children's sudden changes. Narnia did that to people.

Suddenly, though, Alberta turned a quizzical eye on Susan. 'Didn't our Edmund come back from the country radically different, too?'

Susan nodded and shrugged. 'The Professor's house wasn't exactly made for children: we had to be friends.'

Narnia had done that, too.

'Came back a changed man,' Alberta nodded sagely to Camilla. 'I hate to think of what he would have become if not for that summer in the country. Sour young boy, he was. Always picking fights. But you met him — one couldn't ask for a nicer, more considerate boy.'

Susan smiled. That was Edmund all right. Edmund the Just.

'Except, perhaps, Peter,' Camilla pointed out.

'Wasn't he just a dear? I always wondered why he never married: plenty of nice girls would have had him, I'm sure. And Lucy… I've never met a girl with more joy in her.'

Susan listened quietly, sipping her tea. It made the pain easier, listening to these two talk about her siblings with such love. It made her feel less alone.

Better yet, it eased a bit of the anger, because she could see now how much good Narnia had done, as well as the pain and the frustration it had caused.

Where _would_ Edmund have ended up without Narnia? Alive, maybe, but what sort of life would he have had? Or Peter, who'd been caught up in the glories of war before he'd lived it and learned of its dark side. Or Lucy… all that faith, and nowhere for it to go.

_And me? What is it I learned from Narnia?_

But she couldn't remember.

Maybe that was the problem.


End file.
